PANCHADASI--- part 66

E text source- www.celextel.org 56.Elsewhere too the Shruti declares: ‘Know this Self as the dearest which is more intrinsic than son, wealth and so forth’.
57. Through the eye of discrimination following the Shruti it becomes clear that the witness-consciousness is the real Self. Discrimination means separating the five sheaths and seeing the inner substance.
58. That is the self-luminous consciousness, the Self, which is the witness of the presence and absence of the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep.
59. The various objects of enjoyment, from life down to wealth, are objects of varying degrees of love according to their proximity to the Self.
60. A son is dearer than wealth, the body dearer than the son, the sense-organs dearer than the body, life and mind dearer than the sense organs and the Self is supremely dearer than life and mind.
61. In the Shruti there is a dialogue between a wise and a dull-witted man which illustrates the point that the Self is the dearest of all objects.
62. The wise man holds that the witness-consciousness, is dearer than all objects. The dull-witted man maintains that son and other objects are dearer and that the witness-consciousness enjoys the happiness caused by these objects.
63. The ignorant disciple and the confirmed opponent both assert that something other than the Self (Atman) is the object of greatest love. The reply given will prove to be an instruction to the disciple and a curse to the confirmed opponent.
64. The wise man quotes the scripture in his reply: ‘Your dearest thing will make you weep’. The pupil analyses this reply and finds out his error in considering something other than the Self as the dearest.
65. When a married couple desire to have a son and do not have one, they are disappointed and miserable. After conception, a miscarriage or the pain of labour causes sorrow.
66. When a son is born he may suffer from diseases or from the position of the planets at his birth, or he may be stupid or obstinate, or after the investiture of sacred thread, he may study nothing or if he is learned, he may remain unmarried.
67. Again he may start pursuing the wives of others, or he may have an unwieldy family and remain in poverty, or he may grow wealthy and yet die in his youth. Infinite are the sorrows of parents.
68. Having considered all this, the disciple must abstain from forming an attachment to other things. He should focus his love on the Self and contemplate It day and night.
69. The confirmed opponent, who does not give up his contention due to obstinacy and hostility to the knower of truth, sinks into the depths of darkness and suffers the pains of innumerable births.
70. The knower of Brahman is of the nature of Brahman and is described as Ishvara, the all-powerful. Whatever he says will come to pass for the pupil and the opponent.
71. He who contemplates the witness Self as the dearest of all objects will find that this dearest Self never suffers destruction.
72. The Supreme Self, being the object of dearest love, is the source of infinite joy. The Shruti has it that from the sovereignty of this world to position of Hiranyagarbha, everywhere, wherever there is greater love there is greater bliss.
73. (Doubt): If the nature of the Self is bliss as well as consciousness, bliss should be found in all the modifications of the mind, as is consciousness.
74. (Reply): Not so. A lamp burning in a room emits both light and heat, but it is only the light that fills the room and not heat; similarly, it is only consciousness which accomplishes the Vrittis (and not bliss).
75. An object may be characterised by odour, colour, taste and touch, yet each of these properties is cognised by one particular sense-organ and not the others. It is the same with the bliss of the Self.
76. (Doubt): Odours, taste and so forth differ from one another, but in the Self consciousness and bliss are identical. (Reply): Tell whether this identity is in the witness Self or elsewhere ?
77. The odour, colour and other properties of a flower are not separate from one another in the flower. If it be said that the separation of these properties is brought about by the sense-organs, we rejoin that the seeming difference between consciousness and bliss is produced by (the predominance of Rajas or Sattva in) the Vrittis.
78. When there is a predominance of Sattva in the Vrittis, we realise, because of their purity, that bliss and consciousness are one and the same, but when Rajas predominates, because of its impurity, the bliss is obscured.
79. As the intensely sour taste of tamarind when mixed with salt is lessened and taste less sour, so with bliss (when it is obscured by Rajas).
80. (Doubt): By discrimination one can feel that the Self is the dearest, but without the practice of Yoga what good is it (for liberation) ?
81. (Reply): The goal which is reached by Yoga can also be reached by discrimination. Yoga is a means to knowledge; doesn’t knowledge arise from discrimination ?
82. ‘The state achieved by the Sankhyas is also achieved by the Yogis’. Thus it has been said in the Gita about the identity of the fruit of both Yoga and discrimination.
83. Knowing that for some Yoga is difficult and for some others knowledge, the great Lord Sri Krishna speaks of these two paths.
84. What speciality is there in Yoga when knowledge has been declared as common to both ? Both the Yogi and the Viveki (he who practises discrimination) are alike freed from attachment and aversion.
85. One who knows the Self as the dearest has no love for any object of enjoyment. So how can he have attachment ? And how can he who sees no object inimical to himself have any aversion ?
86. Both the Yogi and the Viveki dislike objects unfavourable to the body, mind etc. If it be said that he who has aversion for such objects is not a Yogi, then we rejoin that equally so is he not a Viveki.

Random Quote

-Being free from yourself, free from the image you believe yourself to be. That is liberation. Its quite an explosion to see you are nothing. And then to live completely attuned to this nothingness.
.... To live freely in the beauty of your absence.